


Shelf Life

by Thealmostrhetoricalquestion



Series: Rarepair Bingo [2]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/F, Flying, Freckles, Pre-Relationship, Quidditch
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-10
Updated: 2018-05-10
Packaged: 2019-05-04 20:00:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 984
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14600607
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Thealmostrhetoricalquestion/pseuds/Thealmostrhetoricalquestion
Summary: Cho has never lived from love to love; that’s not how life works, and it makes things messy, and she’s never liked mess.But she likes it now, in the form of red, unravelling plaits, loose laces and rumpled dungarees, and untidy freckles.





	Shelf Life

**Author's Note:**

> Cho/Ginny for the prompt, Freckles.

Cho is clean and neat and gentle and kind, and she loves all those things about herself. But she wishes she was less so, sometimes. She wishes she was more, sometimes. 

Ginny Weasley is reckless. Messy. She eats everything smothered with ketchup, and she flies like something’s chasing her, something with a ghastly smile and webbed fingers. Her laces are never tied up properly and she always smells like flowers, and she sings horribly sometimes, on the way back from matches. She has freckles - everywhere. Cho wants to count them. 

Ginny is a real girl, genuine to the bone. Cho doesn’t often feel that way. She feels like someone carved her carefully from glass and put her up on a shelf to be admired, and she hates that. She wants someone to know the grittiness of herself, the way sometimes she doesn’t shave for weeks and that’s not a bad thing, the way she keeps junk food in her bedside cabinet for two in the morning, when she wakes, ravenous, the way she swears at her mother in her mind. She wants someone to know her grief, that heavy thing that keeps her sobbing late into the night. 

She thinks that would make her feel more like herself, less like a porcelain person. 

Maybe that’s what makes her say yes when Ginny asks. 

“Coach me?” Ginny says, treading on her laces as they bump into each other on the way out of the Great Hall. She trips, and Cho catches her. “I could do with a few tips.”

She winks. Cho doesn’t think anyone apart from Marietta has winked at her before. 

Maybe _that’s_ what makes her say yes when Ginny asks. 

They head to the pitch twice a week and take to the skies. Ginny is good, much better than Cho was a year ago, but she still flies like she’s trying to run from something. 

“You’re a risky flier,” Cho tells her, as they sit on the grass and catch their breath, brooms hovering beside them. “That could be dangerous.”

“I don't know how to fly any other way,” Ginny says. She tugs at the threads at grass that weave through the ground, and Cho flutters her fingers around the edges of a daisy. She’s never liked picking flowers, not since her mother told her that flowers die when you pick them, but they thrive when you leave them alone. 

“You fly like you want the whole world to know you’re there,” Cho says, smiling slightly. 

Ginny looks up, something fierce in her eyes. Freckles gather on her cheeks when she puffs them up. There must be hundreds and hundreds of them, and Cho wonders if they go everywhere, beneath the baggy jumper and dungarees. 

“I don't,” Ginny says flatly. “I’d rather they didn’t know me at all.”

“It’s not wrong, to want to be known,” Cho reassures her, thinking it’s shame and guilt that keeps Ginny out of the spotlight. Some people are like that, unsure of their welcome, and granted, that doesn’t seem like Ginny, but she’s close with Harry Potter, after all. She must have seen the downsides of fame. 

She’s sure of her words, but when Ginny looks at her, she seems just as sure of the opposite opinion. 

“Sometimes it’s better not to be known,” Ginny promises her. “I had someone know every inch of me once, and they took over until I was nothing but a shell. It’s okay to give yourself to people, but it’s also okay to keep pieces for yourself. That doesn’t make them shameful, or less real.” 

She shrugs, and Cho watches her, entranced. Everything about Ginny is motion, fast and free and careless, even though Cho can see a thousand cares piled on top of her. She feels swept up in it all, dizzy with excitement. 

“We should fly again,” Cho says. Ginny tips her head, curious. Cho is always the first away from here, the first away from the temptation of Ginny’s skin, the first to back down from the other paths she can see in Ginny’s eyes, the possibilities she poses. 

Today, though, she wants to stay. 

They take to the skies again. Cho has never kissed someone in mid-air, but the thought is more present than thoughts of exams or wars or battles, and it lingers the longer they fly. 

She thinks Ginny is waiting for someone. She thinks Ginny won’t want this, but she also thinks Ginny makes her feel more alive than she has since Cedric died. Cho has never lived life from love to love; that’s not how life works, and it makes things messy, and she’s never liked mess. 

But she likes it now, in the form of red, unravelling plaits, loose laces and rumpled dungarees, and untidy freckles. 

“Something on your mind?” Ginny shouts. 

Cho slows her broom. Ginny is still flying, ripping through the air, and she soars towards Cho, and Cho knows that the universe shouted when Ginny was born. Her face is fierce and glorious, and Cho catches her before she can shoot past, swinging her around, both of their brooms skidding in mid-air. 

“What the hell was that?” Ginny asks, panting. 

Cho is clean and neat and gentle and kind. She is also fierce and strong, and her feelings, when you get right down to it, are messy. Perhaps Ginny is right, but the truth is, she's never going to be known if she stays on her shelf, gathering dust. 

“I was wondering,” Cho says, taking the risk, “if you’d let me count your freckles.”

Ginny’s stares at her, uncomprehending. 

“All of them,” Cho adds.

Ginny’s eyes widen. She grows still in Cho’s arms, and the brooms begin to sink. 

Just as the fear starts to grip Cho, Ginny leans in closer. Her smile is a neat, clean thing when it graces the day. 

“I thought you’d never ask.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you! <3


End file.
